People around the world are confronted by a number of communications and writing devices which have evolved relatively recently from the separate areas of telephone communications networks, wireless networks, television or cable networks, and computer networks and personal computers. The more recent devices, mobile phones with message/picture/video texting, personal digital devices for Internet browsing and computer-based blogging and social networking sites have been shaped in part by the separate networks of origin, but the nature and capabilities of many of these now-ubiquitous devices have both converged, and also advanced quickly in different directions as the industries controlling each sector have capitalized on their market power, reservoir of legacy subscribers and, in some cases, regulatory barriers and proprietary network equipment and connection protocols, to introduce new consumer features, often employing developments from other consumer products, and aiming to lure subscribers by mimicking those products. However, in doing so, each industry has also been limited by its own equipment, data transfer speeds and connection abilities.
Thus, as digital imaging advanced and consumers learned to take and handle images and to attach the images to e-mail messages, imaging chipsets were incorporated into mobile telephones and the mobile phones were configured to display images and allow their transmission between phones. Text and message protocols allowed transmission of ‘instant’ messages, and coded standardized greetings and messages between phone users, filling a niche for immediate portable, personal communication that was not met by existing personal computer devices. Devices like the iPhone®, introduced in 2007 allowed a user to access his Internet-based email from his mobile phone via a specially-configured data connection with his mobile service provider, and to exchange content via wireless connection to his personal computer.
However, despite these developments blurring boundaries between the classical phone, mobile telephone, Internet, wireless and television or cable networks, there has not been a convergence. Rather, although industry and government groups have promoted interface standards for several different classes of data or communication, each industry has retained much of its special structure, and the devices served by an industry (such as mobile telephones) may find their feature set constrained by intrinsic limitations of bandwidth and connectivity, by available networking equipment base, and by the level of contractual cooperation agreements of its provider. The many different classes of communications systems now available, and the many separate provider networks in each class, have also required the development of new supporting entities, such as nationally- or internationally-extending registries, aggregators, exchanges and other entities, in order to affect timely transfer of data, messages and/or entertainment content. This second-level infrastructure imposes further constraints of the feasible, or economically feasible, set of features that a consumer may exercise. Thus, for example, mobile telephones have been augmented with a display and the ability to run small applications such as games, MP3 players, Internet browsers/applications and email retrieval, while personal computers have the capability to run larger programs, employ wireless connectivity and perform voice-over-IP (VOIP) Internet communications. Various special-purpose applications requiring cross-platform connections may be provided, or applications simulating cross-platform capabilities may be developed, by a service provider, such as a television-displayed chat session available for subscribers of a TV provider. However, many other personal devices while having large data capacity, ability to connect to another user device and ability to run entertainment apps, may entirely lack the mobile telephone electronic circuitry necessary for exchanging mobile messages with telephone users. Additionally, the delivery of messages in some social messaging systems is affected by limitations of carrier networks and international boundaries. It is therefore desirable to provide a system for enhanced communication between personal devices.
Conventional systems have attempted to control where messages (i.e., to what devices) should be delivered either by manual intervention or server initiated control based on some trigger (e.g. time of day, day of week etc.). Previous attempts to solve such delivery problems have utilized GPS devices (generally requiring an excessive amount of battery power) or other geo-location deterministic methods and required user input to identify a “limited” set of data of where such locations are (e.g., work, home, etc.). In addition, mobile carriers have constrained bandwidth and spectrum issues in their networks.